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Wednesday, January 8, 2014

E.H.U.D.: Chapter 24

Chapter 24

This time there was light, soft and
blue, wrapping around shapes and making the whole world glow. John lay in a large bed, his arms held to
side-rails by short padded lanyards.
Tubes and wires descended from a tangle of devices that hung around
him. Beyond those he could see
milky-white curtains, cutting him off from the shadowy forms beyond.

This time, there was order, a
dependable schedule. There was a day of
discernible length, a night of dimmed light.
Four times a day a person in a thick green plastic suit would come in,
check the devices, check him, leave.
After that would come a vibration in the tube running through John's
mouth and into his body, then he would feel full and satisfied. Compared to what had come before it was a
good life.

Except he couldn't sleep. Every time his mind began to drift away,
every time his stomach felt full and ready to digest, he would see Suzanne
slumped lifeless on the floor. Would
wonder again if he had actually moved his finger, or if the two men had chosen
arbitrarily. Compared to this place of
rest, was it better to be dead? Was
Suzanne in the best place he could have chosen for her? Had he protected her, or once again hurt
her? Or had she chosen quick escape for
herself, leaving him the painful choice and the even more painful life
beyond? Every time he thought of her, he
missed her. Every time he missed her, he
hated her. Every time he hated her, he
longed to have her back.

After twenty days, solace came to
him; he had made the right choice.
The person in the thick green suit had come, like always, had checked
him over. But this time the person
didn't leave. This time, John's straps
were tightened, new straps were added to his ankles, across his legs and
chest. He was trapped in the bed, unable
to move.

His attendant left, returned a
moment later with a large handled box.
Inside were row upon row of syringes holding a clear liquid. A syringe was selected, fluid was injected, John
was infected.

That night, as the lights dimmed
and John tried to sleep, he felt hot. He
was sweating now, his eyes stinging, his body aching. He tried to move, to curl in on himself to
escape the pain, but it was no use; the straps were too tight.

By morning, he was not alone. Suzanne and Lucy lay beside him, both resplendent
in frilly wedding gowns, the white lace pouring over the sides of the bed. They caressed his forehead, reassured him,
told him that he had made the right choice.
Suzanne had no one to return to; John had Lucy. It was is if the weight of the world had
lifted from his chest.

They both leaned close, tried to
kiss him around his feeding tube—

The attendant returned. John was poked, prodded. Notes were made on a small tablet. As the attendant left, as the food returned,
John came to his senses enough to see the women fade and vanish. In their place was his body, strapped to the
bed.

He was thin, his stringy muscles
standing out in sharp detail. All along
the pale skin were patches of purple-tinged red, like bruises, rising up above
the underlying muscle. As he watched,
the red patches grew, connecting in places.
They bulged, hardened, oozed with pus, retracted, formed again. With each new growth, each change in his
body, he became hotter, began to gasp for breath, faded away into the inferno
that was boiling just beneath his skin.

His last thought before passing out
was that perhaps he had died, and what he was feeling were the flames of
hell...

This time there were voices. They spoke softly, incoherently, mumbling
from every side. They woke John, brought
him out of the pit with Suzanne and back to the bed. His body stretched out before him, pale and
smooth, the matrix of scars completely gone.
He didn’t know how long his mind had been away, but it must have been
for a considerable span.

His mind... it must be playing tricks on him. The voices continued, but they were too
clear. Thick plastic sheets still cut
him off from the rest of the world, but they didn't muffle the sounds. In fact, they seemed to be completely
unmodulated. The voices came to him,
free of echo, pure of tone. It seemed
less like he was hearing them so much as directly perceiving them with his
mind.

Trying to listen to the voices, to
take in what they had to say, was stranger still. There seemed to be no thought behind the
words—or rather, too much thought. One
voice would start: Oh, God, how could I let him... I shouldn't be
here... Then another would break in:
Kill then all... as soon as I can move, I'll kill them... Then yet another: How much longer, how
much longer, how much longer...

The more John listened, the more
the words broke down, the more he heard—felt—raw emotion. Images floated along with the words: hundreds
of faces, all ages and races, most out in the sun, living in the world. Many, thin and naked, their hair shorn and
pain evident in their eyes.

Whoever these mysterious speakers
were, they seemed to have suffered just as he had.

And the voices continued.

The attendant came, the feeding
tube vibrated, and the voices continued.
Day dimmed into night, John tried to sleep, and the voices
continued. He tried to block them out by
thinking of Suzanne. As he focused on
her, the whisper-pictures of the other victims became louder, and he shifted to
Lucy. This brought about even louder
whispers, but now of friends, of family, of good times in the world of the
living. As the whisper-pictures
continued to flood his mind, he was able to drift off to sleep, convinced that
this had all been a bad dream.

And the voices continued.

Just before sleep claimed him,
another voice joined the din, strong and sure, and completely clear in
meaning. I'm sorry... I didn't want to, but you are the first
sacrifice for the new world... there is
no solace for you in this life, but there will be for some of you in the life
to come...

Falling asleep in one impossible
situation only to awaken in another was becoming routine by now. This time John was in a gymnasium-sized room,
made of the same dark cement as the halls of this place. This time when he woke to find a sea of
clothes-less, hairless people around him, he didn't panic; neither did the
others. As they came awake, as they recognized
they were not alone, they merely nodded greeting to each other, then scooted
away and become obsessed with their own misery.

As the group fragmented, the
whisper-pictures returned...

The sound of boots echoed around
the room, distorted by the space: real sounds, not in his head. Standing along one wall, about midway down
the room, were the two men who had stood behind the chairs. Based on the angry buzz that came through the
voices, the endless identical whisper-pictures, these men had stood behind many
chairs... or at least many occupants.

The shorter man took a step
forward. “Greetings, everyone. My name is Allen. My colleague,” he gestured at the other man,
“is Shaun. For now, those are our only
names. And you,” he looked around the
room, locking gazes with every hate-filled pair of eyes in the room, “have been
chosen to become the greatest weapons humankind has ever made. We live in a dangerous world, always on the
edge of cataclysmic end. Everyone is
always so ready to give offense. What we
need is defense. You... you will be
Defenders.”

For a moment there was
silence. For a moment no sound, real or
imagined, disrupted the sanctity of what the man—Allen—said.

Then there was a yell, a single
lungful of echoing noise, backed a thousand-fold by the voices. Someone leapt from the ground, rushed at
Allen. The other man—Shaun—twitched forward,
an eagerness glinting from his eyes, but Allen was faster, intercepting the
attacker, gripping him in a massive bear hug.

John found himself unable to
breath, the cable-like muscles of Allen's arms holding him more firmly then the
bed restraints ever had.

“You,” he whispered into John's
ear. “You would have defended her if you
could. I'm giving you that chance now.”

John grunted, let out a short gasp
of air. He prayed the others would
follow him, rescue him, but he heard no sound of movement.

Oh, they want to help you... I'm
not letting them, though... It's better that way... Your time to lead them will come John...

John. The shock of hearing his own name, the horror
of knowing that the people here knew who he was, sent a wave of nausea rolling
through him, and his legs gave way. Allen
crouched, lowered him to the ground, laid him gently on the rough floor.

Hey... A new voice. I thought we'd agreed, no more of this
touchy-feely shit...

The General agrees with my
methods... What I do here, I do with
authority...

Allen stared back out at the crowd,
his eyes lingering on John. You're
not supposed to hear that... But I need
you to know that no matter what, we're on the same team... I'm just getting a head start on trust...

As Allen's voice spoke into his
mind, John was aware of the man's true voice, air and vocal-cords voice,
echoing around the room. This man could
speak silently while he also spoke aloud...

And this man had just spoken
silently into John's mind. The low
voices, the whisper-pictures, had been vague and confusing, coming off a period
of emotional stress and severe sickness.
But this time he felt whole, felt rested, felt alert. And this man had just spoken into his mind.

The nausea that had hit him when
Allen used his name returned, in greater force, and the last remnants of what
had been in the feeding tube sprayed in an arc over Allen's boots.

Don't worry yourself... I can
get them clean later...

Routine was once more becoming
routine. Every day the lights would turn
on, and Shaun would walk into the room.
He would lead his horde of prisoners through exercises, then combat
kata, then walk amongst them as they sparred against each other. He would correct them if they performed an
action poorly, give a cold nod of acknowledgement if they performed an action
well. If any of his Defenders refused to
fight, or chose to fight him, he would send them to the ground, twitching and
writhing in psychic agony.

Every day, this was John. Every day he would follow the exercises,
would go through the motions of the combat forms, would test his mettle against
one of his compatriots. Then, just as
Shaun passed by him, he would swing out, try to catch Shaun unawares, try to
hurt him. Every day he would end up on
his back, radiating hatred at Shaun's smiling face.

Every day, Shaun would have the
last word. “Goddamn, Donalson, how are
you ever going to please that girlfriend of yours if you don't even have the
balls to hit me?”

Every day, John vowed revenge.

After exercises there was food and
water. The same bean-paste as before,
but much more of it. They were
encouraged to eat. Not just to eat, to
gorge themselves. They would eat until
they were almost ready to vomit, then the lights were dimmed and they were told
to rest. For the first few days, there
was nervous whispering, hurried plans to overwhelm the two men and escape. Within a week, all discussion stopped, and
all rested.

Nap time would end, and Allen would
enter the room. In contrast to Shaun, he
always smiled, always greeted his horde by name. “Ashleigh, you're looking well today. Vince, glad to see that arm's healing.” And always, a private word for John. I didn't mean for this to happen... Just give me a little while longer, and it
will all make sense...

They sat in loose rows before him,
their legs folded, hands resting palms-up on knees. The first day they had been nervous,
uncertain. Allen led them through
breathing exercises, through meditation techniques. Many, those who had spoken throughout the nap
period, had fallen asleep.

Carefully opening one eye and
looked around, John saw Allen stand, saw him approach one of those who
slept. A young woman, honey-skinned with
a round head and a flat nose. John
flinched inside, already sympathetic to the pain this woman was about to
endure.

Allen reached down and patted her
bare shoulder. “Naomi? Wake up, I'm afraid there's still work to do
today.”

Her eyes snapped open and she
looked around terrified. Those sitting
closest to her edged away, unwilling to suffer Allen's wrath.

Allen smiled, nodded in acknowledgement,
and returned to the front of the room.
“Now you all see the importance of rest before this exercise. If the mind can't stay awake while it is away
from the body, it is useless...”

As the weeks slowly passed, Allen's
instruction became steadily more bizarre.
Yet even as it raised so many questions about why they were there, why
they had been kidnapped and tortured, it also answered other questions.

Now, I know you all can hear
me... I want to hear you... You've been doing it already, unconsciously... Now, I want you all to envision my mind, to
seek it out, to speak purposefully to it...

There was a confused babble from
the voices, sudden flashes of whisper-pictures.
But they were quieter this time, less, clear, as if they had been
focused at one destination, as if less
of the signal were getting lost.

I hate you Allen... I hate you
and Shaun, and this place and your goddamned mysterious General...

Allen smiled. “Very good, everyone; we've made
progress. I think we'll end a little
early today. Maybe tonight, while you're
sleeping, you'll try to reach out and speak to someone with what I have shown
you. I sincerely hope you do...” I'm not against you, John... I hate this place just as much as you
do... This was not what I expected... Just give me time...

After Allen there was more
food. Food, feasting, sleep. They all lay curled in a mass in the middle
of the room. For some reason, sleep came
easier to them after their time with Allen than their time with Shaun.

It was during this time, after a
hard day of training, after the two men had left, that the Defenders talked.

“You know,” a short woman named Cyd
said, “things might go better for you if you don't antagonize Shaun.”

A girl, no more than
16—Maria—scoffed and said, “He's the only one who's willing to do what we
should all be doing. Just because it
looks like we're stuck here doesn't mean we can't find a way out.”

“He keeps speaking to me...” John
said. About ten others turned to stare
at him. “Allen. In my mind.
He keeps telling me that he's sorry this is all happening, that if we're
patient, he'll get us all out of here.”

Cyd's eyes widened and she gestured
at John. “Okay, then just keep your head
down; he'll let us go. We just wait, and
everything's fixed.”

“I'm sorry, how long have we been
here?”

Cyd didn't respond.

“How long were you held in a
tiny room, being tortured, huh? I'd
guess for me at least a month, maybe longer.
I wouldn't know; I was too busy being mind-fucked. And then, you know what? I killed the one person who was there for me
throughout that time, the one person who needed me. Then I got infected with God only knows
what. Did that happen to you too?”

Cyd nodded.

“And how long do you think Allen's
known about that, huh? At least since I
killed Suzanne?”

“Harry...” Cyd muttered.

“You think if maybe, maybe he
was going to get us out of here, he would have done it before we were tortured,
or before they turned us into killers, huh?
You think he might have done it while we were still human?” John was trembling now, breathing
heavily. “If he was going to get us out
of here, he should have done it by now.
At this point, I don't want his help.
I'll do whatever I need to, to get out on my own.”

He glared at Cyd, waited for her to
say something. She looked away. He sighed.
His anger released, he fell back to the concrete, then turned on his
side and tried to sleep.

It continued like this for over a
year. Wake up, Shaun, food, sleep,
Allen, food, sleep, wake up, Shaun. They
grew stronger, faster, their bodies honed to perfection. Sparring was no longer a challenge, was just
a game of blocking each other's moves.
Their minds also grew stronger, also neared perfection. They had long ago moved past speaking to each
other through their thoughts, long ago moved past simple matter
manipulation. They had all moved
together, their minds linked, passing through an entire human body, seen its
intimate workings, healed its maladies, found a hundred thousand ways of
killing it without ever leaving a mark.
They had moved beyond thinking of themselves as single isolated humans,
had now become something more.

And then one night Allen spoke to
them while they slept.

Soon, others will come into this
place, to test you, to use you... You
will be asked to do terrible things...
And now, I will ask you to do the most terrible thing of all... I will ask that you trust me...

And with those words a dream
began. The memory of being Allen entered
their minds, and they were all corporals in the United States Army, standing in
a sterile room, dressed in nothing but a thin paper gown.

“You understand the risks of this?”
an older man asked.

“Sir, yes, sir, proud to risk my
life for my country, sir!”

“No need to be so gung-ho, Corporal
Fendleton. The tests have been very effective
with animals; your prognosis looks good.”

Fendleton nodded as a doctor led
him to an examining table.

The older man continued. “Fendleton, if this works out... Well, not only do we have that promotion I
mentioned, but also the possibility of training some others. It won't be immediate, mind you, we still
need to find out what you're capable of, but if you meet our expectations,
we're looking to increase the scope of the program, and...” He shrugged. “You'd be in on the ground floor.”

Allen laughed around a tongue
depressor. “Sou's goo' 'a 'e.”

The scene faded, shifted, and now
they all lay in familiar beds, with the familiar tension of restraints on their
arms as familiar pain racked through their bodies.

In the next bed over—the only other
bed in the room—lay Shaun.

“Goddammit,” he yelled, “this was a
fucking mistake!”

All Allen could do was groan
agreement.

The scene faded again. Now First Lieutenant Allen Fendleton stood
before the desk of the older man, Colonel Robert Mistlethwakey. “You've done good, son. Much better than our initial estimates. Hell, all the chimps did was make the
researchers give them bananas and get horny.
Unfortunately, your prowess leaves us in a bit of a predicament.”

“Sir?”

“I've already spoken this over with
the President, and he agrees. Drawing
volunteers for an augmented intelligence force is one thing, but for fucking
superheroes? We can't have acknowledged
people on our pay with those kinds of powers, not if we don't want the rest of
the world to nuke us to hell and back. This
goes a bit beyond Project Stargate. No,
we're going completely black ops on this one.
We're recruiting from the populace, doing this in such a way that no one
can trace it back to us. Matter of fact,
we've already started. Now, we just need
you and Lieutenant Wendleferce to train the unfortunate motherfuckers.”

“Sir, I...” unease passed through
the multitude that shared Allen's mind.
“Sir, I have some reservations about that...”

“Come on, now, Fendleton, where's
that gung-ho spirit you used to have? We
need it for this. You said you were
willing to do anything for your country, yes?”

And now they were back in the
bright cubes, hiding behind the prototype powered armor the General had passed
on. They stood next to Todd Frease, the
program doctor, as Shaun mercilessly beat one of his victims. The thin little man, freckled skin,
mid-thirties—Harry—tried to stand, but Shaun hit him again, cracking the skull,
spraying blood over the woman in the room—Cyd.

That's enough, Shaun... You can't just kill them...

Shaun reached out and pinched a
vessel in Cyd's brain; she collapsed into unconsciousness. Then he began pushing together the split
side's of Harry's head, fusing the skull back together.

Doesn't really matter, does
it? One of them is going to die
anyway...

Allen felt a wave of revulsion, and
marched out of the room.

The scene faded, and now there was
only darkness.

I didn't want to do this,
but... It was supposed to be for the
best... You were supposed to be a
first-line defense against global threats, but now I see that won't
work... You're greater than a single
nation, a single cause... You are gods
among men, forces of a global scale, and you must defend all of
humanity... You are strong now, I trust
you now with what power you have...

I ask now that you savor what
power you have tasted, and stay with me as I feed you more... Stay here and learn all you can, become more
powerful than you could ever have imagined, and together we will rise from this
pit and ascend to a world in need of what we can offer... I asked you once to be Defenders... Now I ask you again... Forgive the unforgivable thing I have done,
and use this power to truly defend the defenseless...

And throughout the room, forty-nine
freighted, desperate, hopeful mind answered Yes... And one mind answered No...

The next morning lights turned on, and Shaun
strode into the room. He stopped, fell
into a pose, performed a swift set of movements, stopped and watched as his
students did the same. Then, another
set. Both were movements taught long
ago, returned to be fresh in the student's minds. More movements, his students following them
all exactly. Then he walked amongst
them, reaching out his arms to touch two, telling them to fight, touching
another two, the same.

He passed by John, sneered at him,
just as he had every day.

The fighting began, a fluid dance
of twenty-five pairs swirling and striking, flowing around each other, never
quite hitting. Shaun continued to walk
amongst them, to become a sudden third player in the dance, to move through and
be gone. He passed by John, readied
himself... but John ignored him. John
continued to be engrossed by the tall, thick-limbed body of Merv the Soldier,
continued to participate whole-heartedly in the dance.

So Shaun passed through them,
confident that today there had been a change.

The dance ended, small doors on
either end of the room slid open, and bowls of food were passed through. Shaun watched as his students stood, got
their food, began to eat.

John watched Shaun. He kept track of the man—the monster—as he
went to the wall, picked up a bowl, sat down with Cyd and Naomi to eat.

Shaun started towards a door. John picked up the bowl and poured its
contents onto the floor.

“The hell?”

He stood, threw the bowl, held it
in his mind and flung it at Shaun, crashing it into the side of his face,
spraying blood.

“The hell?!”

John leapt forward, all
concentration on his hips and legs, reaching Shaun in under two seconds,
grabbing him, throwing him to the ground.

Shaun took the weight of the thin
Defender, rolled, came up to his feet grappling with John. They both broke apart, began swinging at each
other, neither hitting, too evenly matched.
John struck out with his third fist, his invisible fist, flattening
Shaun's face and spraying out even more blood.
He reached inside with the fist, found Shaun's heart, began to squeeze
it.

Shaun gasped, clutched at his
chest, narrowed his eyes. John was flung
backwards, scraped along the rough ground for a yard, his back torn and
bloody. He came up, lunged, found all
feeling below his waist disappear, stumbled and collapsed, his legs flopping
and twitching, trying to find a signal from the brain.

John glared up as Shaun leaned over
him, his flattened nose extending, snapping back into place, the flow of blood
drying and stopping.

“Before, back when it was just a
swing or two at my head? That was kind
of cute. You were just trying to show
you weren't broken, were still fighting back.
That was good, that was spirit.
But this? This is just goddamn
sad. You don't get it yet, do you? You can't beat me. I rule here, and you have no choice but to
fall in line.”

John tried to muster a wad of
bloody saliva, to spit it up into Shaun's face, but it merely fell back into
his own.

“I know all about you,
Johnny-boy. I've read your files and
I've read your mind. What you don't seem
to realize is, while you're stuck here, I can leave whenever I want. What's to stop me from going up to
Philadelphia, from finding Lucille Dawkins, from doing whatever I damn well
please to here?”

John began to twitch.

“You may think the outside world is
gone. In a way, it is. You can't touch it. But it can sure as hell touch you. I can come back and tell you just exactly
what I did to her. Hell, I can do one
better. I can show you, I can give you a
nice vicarious conjugal visit to your little girlfriend. How'd you like that?”

John continued to twitch, his eyes
growing wider.

“Good.” Shaun straightened and walked away.

As feeling returned to John's body,
as he was able to roll over and stand, to see the stunned and piteous looks of
his compatriots, a voice came into his mind.

Now will you do it? Now will you bide your time with me, join me
in subverting men like him? Now will you
be one of my Defenders?

John walked stiffly back to Cyd and
Naomi, scooped some bean-paste off the ground, ate it.